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Thursday, 12 April 2012

Indecent Dressing

I was at a popular shopping mall with my kids a while
ago buying pizza. My children decided to go into the department store
so they could see the latest "wii" game if any. As I was about to join
them, someone tapped my shoulder and said please Madam Stella, forgive
me for being so rude I would like to talk to you and it’s urgent. I
said ok no problem what can I do for you? She said can we go to a quiet
corner so we can talk better? I said “ok as long as it’s not away from
where I can at least keep an eye on my kids. So we walked in and she
brought out a magazine, flipped through and pointed at a lady that was
almost nude all in the name of fashion. She said she wanted to talk to
me because she knew that I was familiar with the person in the magazine.
I already new where she was going and started laughing. She got
offended and wondered why I found it funny. She then started to raise
her voice, saying that those of us that are role models are supposed to
be setting good examples, which was very true, and that she has seen
over five pictures of me at different events and am always properly
dressed and according to her "covered up", which was also true.

I
agreed with her and told her I was laughing because I had seen that
particular magazine and already had a conversation about it with my
sisters and a few of my good friends. One of my friends actually said
“the beautiful ones are always properly and decently dressed but the
ugly, insecure, non intelligent and shapeless ones are the ones who
flaunt those worn out, stretch marked, oversized, body parts that should
be left covered”.That was actually the major reason I laughed and
by the time I finished the woman was laughing harder than I was. We
walked across and sat by the food court and started chatting. Her
worries were very justified because she had a sixteen year old daughter
who would do anything to become and actress and singer, she has been
attending vocal classes just to show her seriousness. Her mum was
rightfully worried because her role models are “guess who?”; those same
ladies in the entertainment world who give off wrong signals.

It’s a
free world we all know that, and people have freedom of expression; we
don’t have the right to judge or criticize people; one man’s meat is
another man’s poison; this is the 21st century; you must belong so that
you can be a happening babe; and so on and so forth. True fact, but at
whose expense? I love Asa’s song titled “Fire on the mountain:
especially the part where she said “who’s responsible for what we teach
our children”, “is it the internet or the stars on television?” why oh
why. It's one of my favorite songs so forgive me if I use it all the
time. We forget that regardless of civilization, exposure and status;
we are still first of all Africans with values, culture e.t.c. Believe
it or not these are the things that amaze the western world because
they don’t have that. They want to know the way we live, how we think,
the way we dress, the way we talk, our tradition and culture, the
peculiarity of our film making. They have turned African tradition and culture to major courses in foreign universities, it is mystery to them.

While
these are happening we are busy trying to loose all that just to be
like them by all means. Most of the copy cats have never even seen the
inside of the international airport. It’s basically information from
television and magazines. This is really really sad because they think
that when you are almost nude, every man will want to get with you
right? WRONG! You enjoy all the attention yes but try to tell him to
introduce you to his family even as just a friend, then just watch out
for his reaction. Trust me the opposite sex will nearly kill his sister
or his wife if they dress like that, but they will let you do it
because to them you are just a piece of meat. My mother always used to
tell me “Dress the way you want to be addressed”.I went to the one
of the cinema houses sometime last year and saw 4 girls in their
uniforms that were carrying nap sacks. They called out my name in
excitement and ran to me to sign autographs which I gladly did. They
left me and I saw an old friend of mine who started chatting with me.
In less that ten minutes these same girls came out of the restroom and
my jaw dropped with my eyes bulging out in horror. They were wearing
serious hot micro daisy duke shorts with halter neck half tops. I
couldn’t handle it and it just occurred to me that they packed extra
clothes in their bags went to school and came straight from school to
the cinema. My first question to my friend was “is there a dress code
that I don’t know about for cinema now or is something wrong somewhere?
People don’t go into cold cinema halls half naked so they are obviously
not there to watch a movie and there was certainly no party there
because trust me I actually checked for any event that I did not know
of.

When young girls dress like that what do you think they are
trying to achieve if not attention. You know that they will definitely
not get the right kind of attention. My heart started beating fast and I
said a quick prayer asking God to give me the wisdom to train my kids
the way my mum trained us. These girls could not have been more than
fourteen and that was scary. We need to tell ourselves the truth. I’m
going to take time out to explain some of the reasons why this happens
and how we could make it better. We should not condemn ladies who dress
like that because some of them are going through Psychological issues,
leaving in self denial and have lost every ounce of confidence and self
esteem to the point where they are screaming “Attention”! To be noticed.

Some of the reasons that I have discovered are: -1.
Upbringing: - this mostly is caused by the way the child is raised and
what she is exposed to at an early age. As we know the biggest
influence on kids is television. Most parents don’t bother to control
what their kids are watching and learning e.g. some music videos are not
appropriate for kids because it has become a nude affair and since it
is played in the minds of these kids they begin to think it is normal
and acceptable especially when no adult is preventing them from watching
and telling them it is not right. The parents and older siblings also
have to be careful with their own dressing because kids tend to emulate
the older ones. Another thing that worries me is the fact that some
mothers are actually the ones who buy these clothes for their young
daughters. They are the ones that even tell them the names like, daisy
dukes, tank tops, halters, strapless, British cores, hipster, low waist
jeans that shows the crack of the butt, balloon micro and a host of
others.

2. Exposure: - a lot of parents pride themselves with the
fact that they can afford the best things in life for their kids which
is very good. But they have to be careful what they expose their kids
to at an early age. For instance, some parents need to realise that at a
certain age there are some places they their young daughters should not
go to and there are some friends they cannot be extremely close to.
This might sound harsh but trust me the saying “show me your friends
and I will tell you who you are” is very strong. My daughter was
invited to the shopping mall by her classmate whom she said was also a
friend and I insisted that the child minder and my second daughter must
accompany her. Hours later when they came back it was my younger
daughter that told me that the girl who invited them was wearing the
kind of shorts I said they cannot wear. I called the minder so she
could explain and she said the girl was wearing hot pants and was
pointing at a bottle in the alcohol stand saying that her dad allowed
her to drink that adult drink and it was very nice. Of course my older
daughter came to me and said, “Mum her shorts had Hanna Montana designs
on them and they were really nice”. When I got up and gave my daughter
“the look” (she understands that look very well), nobody told her to end
her statement with “(but then again it was just too short and I didn’t
like that)”. I had to refuse any more gatherings or meetings between my
kids and the girl in question because I could only imagine what a
little girl her age would already have been exposed to. Kids learn
faster from their pears and television. This brings me to the next one.

3.
Peer Pressure: - This is the most common one because young girls who
are not properly grounded at home can be very gullible. They want to
belong, they don't want to be laughed at or ignored; so once they see
other girls doing it, getting away with it and attracting the opposite
sex, they believe it’s the way forward. I have seen young girls who
would rather starve, or not pay for exams or even medicals, than to miss
out on the newest skimpy skirt or cleavage showing tops just so they
feel accepted by others who are neck deep into it. If a young girl does
not follow this trend they are called “old fashioned”, “old school”,
“mama Africa”, “sister mary”, “ITK”, “booky” and so on. No young girl
wants her peers to call her that, so automatically they would conform.

4.
Psychological: - there are various psychological reasons that push
young girls into this mode. A lot of young girls cannot handle
pressure. It breaks them down. Most of them have parents that are not
their friends and therefore cannot share their thoughts and concerns.
You find that most of them either bottle these things up and then
explode one day and do the extreme; or they avoid the psychological
trauma by following others so they are not different.

5. Some
young girls have gone through a lot at a tender age which has really
disturbed them psychologically. Some have low self esteem, some feel
they are not appreciated because they are not as pretty as their sisters
or friends; others feel because their parents insult them with words
like “ you good for nothing girl”, you are useless in this house e.t.c.
The only thing they are good for is using their bodies to attract men
to make money so they can be useful. Some actually have said that they
were crazy and revealing clothes to make up for other areas of their
bodies that are not so nice e.g. face.

You would be surprised that
when you listen to most of these young girls talk about reasons behind
what they do; instead of judging or insulting them you would be
compelled to help them because most of them are misguided and some have
been physically and mentally abused. So this for them is their way of
rebelling and punishing their folks. We need to find a way of showing
them that we are not judging them but we want to help. They have to be
taught that "people protect what they love, cherish and respect. So if
you treat your body like it's an object or a tool to get something by
exposing it and showing the whole world things that should be covered,
then it means that you don't love, cherish and respect your body".

It
is also our responsibility as celebrities, role models, house hold
names etc to set good examples and shown the younger generation that
decency is very important. We tend to forget that we are being watched
especially by these young girls who want to be like us. They copy
whatever we do, how we walk, talk, dress, behave and even our
expressions. We have tone careful with the way we do things that
influence the impressionable minds. These young girls will listen to
their favorite stars and emulate them more than their own mothers or
sisters.

A lot of people may hate me or call me names because of
this article but like I always say, these are my thoughts and my
opinion. I have a responsibility and that is to speak the truth that I
know.Let us try to mentor these girls even when it seems they are not interested.

6 comments:

You have raised some valid points here, especially the effects on the next generation. I did a post on something close here: http://toinlicious.blogspot.com/2012/03/barbie-beauty-myth.htmlGood one Stella :)

This is so good. I like the fact that you brought the point about what they see on TV or what they see their "role models" wear, they definitely think its cool and then go on to wear it also. Obviously some are as a result of bad past experiences and some are just plain point blank "I want to be amongst the cool ones" like you said. They both need to be dealt with, the attitude/thinking I mean. Sometimes, I do ask myself when I see people wearing such- "Did that girl's mother see her before she stepped out of the house?" If yes, then wooow seriously? and she was looking at her?, if no then "let her mother catch her she will be in soup". May God help us, but we also need to play our bit well! LOL@ "the look".

True talk Stella. I like the quote of the day too.Lately, I've come to realize that mothers have a BIG role to play in this. There's a neighbor's 5 year old daughter that is always clad in ridiculously short skirts. The puzzling thing is the way she walks when she's dressed this way, she's aware of the attention she gets and likes it. We shouldn't get carried away with keeping up with trend and allow our children dress indecently. Please mothers BEWARE.

Many times i ask a single question, why can't ladies ask men or guys to dress with boxers and singlet alone when going out...but the fact that the modern world is reflecting is that girls or ladies are the "so called sex objects" portrayed for men to laud on.. i hope our girls or ladies can understand, its the inner beauty and not the displayed bodies for show off...nice one again.

About Me

Stella Damasus is a multi talented Actress, Singer, Speaker and Producer. Having over 100 films under her belt, she has worked with some of the greatest entertainers in Africa. Stella who is also a mother has been an actor for over two decades and is the Founder of the Stella Damasus Arts Foundation, ADIVA and is the Co-Founder of Index Two Studios, i2Radio and Mon Afrik TV